Romain Gary (8 May 1914 – 2 December 1980) was a French novelist, film director, World War II aviator and diplomat.
Born Roman Kacew (Yiddish: קצב, Russian: Кацев), Romain Gary grew up in Vilnius to a family of Lithuanian Jews. He changed his name to Romain Gary when he escaped occupied France to fight with Great Britain against Germany in World War II. His father, Arieh-Leib Kacew, abandoned his family in 1925 and remarried. From this time Gary ...
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Romain Gary (8 May 1914 – 2 December 1980) was a French novelist, film director, World War II aviator and diplomat.
Born Roman Kacew (Yiddish: קצב, Russian: Кацев), Romain Gary grew up in Vilnius to a family of Lithuanian Jews. He changed his name to Romain Gary when he escaped occupied France to fight with Great Britain against Germany in World War II. His father, Arieh-Leib Kacew, abandoned his family in 1925 and remarried. From this time Gary was raised by his Jewish mother, Mina Owczinska. When he was fourteen, he and his mother moved to Nice, France. In his books and interviews, he presented many different versions of his father's origin, parents, occupation and childhood.
He later studied law, first in Aix-en-Provence and then in Paris. He learned to pilot an aircraft in the French Air Force in Salon-de-Provence and in Avord Air Base, near Bourges. Following the Nazi occupation of France in World War II, he fled to England and under Charles de Gaulle served with the Free French...
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